“Religious persecution may shield itself under
the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety”
(Edmund Burke, February 17, 1788)

Hindu American Foundation

Board of Directors

Mihir Meghani, M.D., President

Fremont, California

Aseem R. Shukla, M.D.

Minneapolis,
Minnesota

Nikhil N. Joshi, Esq.,
M.B.A.

Tampa, Florida

Legal Counsel

Suhag A. Shukla, Esq.

Executive Director

Ishani Chowdhury

Executive Council

Pawan Deshpande

Maneesh Mehra

Rajan Patel, Ph.D

Ramesh Rao, Ph.D

Sheetal Shah

Vinay Vallabh

Swaminathan
Venkataraman

The Hindu
American Foundation (HAF) is a human rights group whose purpose is to
provide a voice for the 2 million Hindu Americans in the United States. HAF interacts
with and educates government, media, think tanks, academia and public fora
about Hinduism and issues of concern to Hindus locally and globally. Promoting
the Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism, HAF
stands strong against hate, discrimination, defamation and terror. The Hindu
American Foundation is not affiliated with any religious or political
organizations or entities. HAF seeks to serve Hindu Americans across all
sampradayas (Hindu religious traditions)..

http://www.HinduAmericanFoundation.org/

Acknowledgements

This is the second of our annual
Hindu human rights reports.As in the
past year, numerous grass-roots organizations were involved in collecting data
about the violation of human rights of Hindu minorities, and we thank them for
sharing the information they have gathered despite great adversity – in terms
of their own physical safety, and the financial pressures involved with their
work.We would like to thank the many
organizations working for the welfare of Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and
India’s State of Jammu and Kashmir.Chief among these organizations are the Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha
Christian Oikya Parishad (Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council –
BHBCUC) -- which provided us with critical data of the daily violence against
the Hindu minority in Bangladesh; Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh
Minorities (HRCBM) -- an organization that has been at the forefront of
publicizing the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh; Hindu Human Rights – an
important presence on the internet documenting the attacks on Hindu minorities
around the world; Indo-American Kashmir Forum, and Kashmiri Overseas
Association – that have worked to bring the attention of the United States government
and media to the plight of Kashmiri Hindus; Panun Kashmir – working hard to
recover the lost properties and homes of Hindus forced to leave the Kashmir
valley; Global Human Rights Defence – seeking to educate European media and
government about the status of human rights worldwide; and South Asia Human
Rights Documentation Centre – which keeps track of human rights abuses in South
Asia.

We
acknowledge the work of global human rights organizations – Amnesty
International, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch and others – in bringing to
our attention the denial of human rights in the sub-regions in South Asia.Also, important historical information and
contemporary updates were obtained from the U.S. Department of State’s annual
reports on religious freedom and human rights, and the United States Commission
on International Religious Freedom’s annual reports.

HAF
interns Rajit Das and Preetom Sikder gathered data for this report.Shelvin Prasad was instrumental in compiling
the report on the Republic of the Fiji Islands.

Finally, we thank Sam Hummel of Lost, New Hampshire for the
cover photograph.Minu Shukla designed
the cover and maps for the 2004 report. Pawan Deshpande designed the cover and
additional maps for the 2005 report.